Selective Thought
by Fallyn Irlandes
Summary: The Doctor reflects on his own mind, while others add gentle Library spoilers and the psychic paper is most emphatically blank and he wasn't staring at it, what are you talking about Amy?


_This is one of the first Doctor Who fanfics I ever wrote, and which I recently found. Everyone could use some stream-of-consciousness Eleven, right? Of course right!_

* * *

Selective thought.

It's an odd process, one humans figure out every once in a while, only their brains get distracted and they end up being "random".

Random? There's nothing random about them, and everything random about them. They're so…human.

Now I'm being random. I suppose that's good. Or it could be bad.

No, I was thinking about selective thought. I came up with that name. Sort of. It's English. English the language humans mostly use and sometimes I can even use better than they do and it's not my native language but it hurts too much to use mine all the time because—

Stop it. What is it humans say? You are what you eat? It's ridiculous, really. I'm not round with jam in my middle and comprised of two cookies, even though I eat Jammie Dodgers. Tigers aren't the rabbits they hunt, and humans certainly aren't the chips and burgers and all the meat they eat. Well, most of them aren't. A few—

Stop. I was trying to think of the fact that I am what I think about.

Or not. I sure hope not.

Or maybe that's a good thing. I think about my friends a lot; and they're exceptionally good.

But at the same time, I think about myself far too often. Good or bad, I'm not sure. I don't think I want to know, and chances are if I'm wondering about myself, it's bad. Vanity is bad? I suppose it is.

I wasn't even trying to figure out that! I was…what was I thinking about? Myself, companions, eating, language, selective thought.

Ah! Selective thought. Being able to limit your brain to only one train of thought, even while it races ahead and you're aware of it considering so many different things.

I suppose that's why my companions sometimes think I know everything, or that I always have a plan. I don't, actually. Sort of. I let the other, subconscious part of my brain register all the details and then put them all together at the right moment.

It's fun.

Except sometimes I don't think of it in time. Sometimes the details don't register or I distract myself from thinking it through. Sometimes…

Sometimes the detail I'm missing is only something I discover after someone dies.

But I can't think of it all at once, can I? That would be impossible.

No…not impossible, just…painful. Far too often the details I need to figure out have to do with memories.

I hate memories. The past. There's a reason only a few creatures time travel.

"Doctor!" Amy's voice.

"What?" I look up and she and Rory are staring at me.

"You've been staring at your psychic paper for five minutes."

I look down. Right. "You sure it's been five minutes?" I put it away and turn around, facing the console. She's waiting to go somewhere.

"Yes. Although it could be longer," Rory says.

"What's on it?" Amy tries to take it out of my pocket but I back away.

"Nothing's on it." Maybe I was just remembering where it came from. Or who gave it to me. Or what's on it.

"Then why were you staring at it?" Rory.

I look at him, then smile. "I thought it had a faulty wire, and I was trying to fix it and…" I pull it out with a flair and toss it to him. He opens it to reveal it's white surface. "I did!"

I turn around and come face to face with Amy. She's frowning. "You okay?"

I smile again and turn back to the console, flipping switches. "More than okay, Amy. I have decided where we're going next!"

"Somewhere warmer than the Frozen Lake of the Dead?" Rory asks hopefully.

"And the Ice Palace of the Not-Alive?" Amy adds meaningfully.

We land and I turn around to face them. "Yes. Out there—" I gesture to the doors—"is the tropical planet of Imrallacatoniswen."

"Imra—" Rory sighs, tosses me the psychic paper, and follows Amy.

She says quietly to him, "Sometimes I think he just makes them up."

But I hear, and somehow I keep myself from thinking about all the planets I know, all the planets that have been lost. I flip open the paper again and the letters appear on the surface.

HELLO SWEETIE

Selective thought. I can't bear thinking of what has happened…what will happen to her. It hurts. I can't stand looking at her wild, untamable hair and remembering her lifeless body in that chair.

So I don't.

At least I try.


End file.
